Tuesday, 14 June 2011

Last week Simon and another Swiss pilot, Hansjoerg Schlatter landed for the first time at a brand new airstrip at Ibba in Southern Sudan. This airstrip has been built by the Diosese of Ibba to help the people there who have such difficulty with transport in that remote area.

I have included some photos of this event to give you an idea of what it looks like. It is amazing the difference an airstrip can make to a remote area.

The first landing of an aircraft and it was a MAF one :)

A group photo of all the people that attended the opening ceremony

Simon walking the airstrip to measure it out.

The speeches at the opening ceremony

Yesterday (Sunday) we were able to respond to a request from International Hospital to medevac a patient from Mweya. A man had a complicated fracture of his leg. He had previously had a hip replacement operation and he had stepped wrongly and fell causing his leg to twist and break. The flight time from Mweya was 1Hr 15 minutes. The alternative would have been around a 6 hour drive in an ambulance over very bumpy roads so he could arrive at the hospital for treatment. Please pray for Michael as he receives treatment for his injury.

Our Operations Manager read a newspaper story last week of 2 ladies who had died whilst giving birth.The hospital they were at is not one that MAF supplies blood with, as there are reasonable roads in that area - but they had still run out of blood and were unable to give a lifesaving blood transfusion to either of these two ladies. This really underlined how important it is that blood is available when and where it is needed. It is a reminder of how important the MAF blood deliveries are for the hospitals and people of Northern Uganda, and of the lifesaving service MAF provides in getting the supplies to the remote areas we serve.